The rhinoceros has been in retreat for millennia. The last British and Russian rhinos (representing two species of Pleistocene "woolly" rhinoceros) seem to have died about 12,000 years ago. Chinese rhinos, attested in Han Dynasty art and literature, have not been seen in centuries. But five rhino species, all endangered, still hang on in southern Africa, India, Nepal, and Southeast Asia. Africa's "black" and "white" rhinoceros total about 3,600 and 11,100 individuals, respectively. The Indian rhino numbers about 2,400. The Javanese and Sumatran rhinos are in truly dire condition. About 300 Sumatran rhinos survive in peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Indonesia (and perhaps a few in Thailand and Burma); only about 60 Javanese rhinos remain in the wild, including one group of 50 in Java and a second population of around 10 in Vietnam.
Why the decline? Asian rhinos probably suffer most from loss of habitat. In Africa, horn trade may be the most dangerous factor. Wildlife biologists believe horn poaching for two big export markets cut black rhino populations from about 70,000 to 2,550 between 1970 and the mid-1990s. The first market (in China, Korea, and Taiwan) is traditional Asian medicine, where rhino horn is ground to a powder used to treat headaches and fevers. Across the Red Sea, meanwhile, horn is used for the ornamental hilts of traditional Yemeni daggers known as jambiyya. (These are curved knives about a foot long, reported by the Yemen Times to cost $800-$5,000 apiece. Per capita income in Yemen is about $450.) A 1997 staff report from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species estimated that 67 tons of rhino horn had been shipped from Africa to Yemen in the 1980s and early 1990s. With a typical horn weighing three kilos, jambiyya-making may account for the loss of 22,000 rhinos over these years.
Such trends are not irreversible. The recovery of the white rhino is an example. Trophy hunting seems to have pushed its numbers below 100 by the late 19th century; South Africa's conservation measures have brought the population back up above 11,000. The Indian rhino has also rebounded, from around 300 individuals in the mid-20th century to about 2,400 today, through the creation of Nepal's Chitwan National Park and India's Kaziranga Reserve in Assam. The black rhino may also be in the early stages of a rebound, having risen from 2,550 in the mid-1990s, to 3,100 in 2001, and now 3,600. Helping its recovery is a drop in Asian and Yemeni horn imports. Possible explanations include: bans on rhino-horn trade through the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) since 1977, a Chinese import ban in 1993, and Yemen's decision to join CITES in 1997; efforts to encourage Yemeni dagger-smiths to substitute gazelle or water buffalo horn, along with locally mined agate, for rhinoceros horn; and effective rhino protection in South Africa.
CITES reports in 1997 on the decline of the black rhino:
http://www.traffic.org/publications/summaries/
summary_yemen.html
Six years later, the International Rhino Foundation notes a recovery:
http://www.rhinos-irf.org/rhinoinformation/blackrhino/index.htm
The African Wildlife Federation's rhinoceros page:
http://www.awf.org/wildlives/5
The Yemen Times reports on the jambiyya industry (1998):
http://www.yementimes.com/98/iss38/culture.htm
Asian medicine -- Aspirin works for headaches. The World Wildlife Fund believes horn does not, noting that since horn grows from keratin, the fibrous substance found in human hair and nails, it is no more effective than chewing on ground-up toenails. The Thailand Society for Wildlife Conservation backs up WWF's view: "Reason for [Javanese rhino] extinction on the mainland is that they have been hunted for their horn, meat, and blood. It is believed that eating the rhinoceros will give good health and improve sexual potency. However, medical analysis has found that none of these properties exist."
The Thai Society for the Conservation of Wild Animals:
http://www.tscwa.org/wildlife/rare_or_extinct_02.html
And the WWF's rhino horn trade page:
http://www.worldwildlife.org/trade/faqs_rhino.cfm
Nomenclature -- Despite their names, the "white" and "black" rhino are both grayish-brown. The names come from linguistic misunderstanding on the part of 18th-century British naturalists. The white rhino, a relatively gregarious savannah animal, was originally the "weit" rhino. Weit is a Dutch word meaning "wide-mouthed," referring to its square-shaped upper lip. This apparently distinguishes it from the more solitary, forest-preferring black rhino, whose upper lip is pointed.
Extreme conservation -- A Japanese/Russian research team plans to revive the woolly rhinoceros along with the mammoth, steppe lion, and other Pleistocene fauna by recovering frozen DNA from Siberian tundra. The Vladivostok News explains:
http://vn.vladnews.ru/arch/2002/iss324/News/upd14.HTM
